WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has declined an attempt to have the words “In God We Trust” removed from the front of a North Carolina county government building. The justices declined, without comment, Nov. 14 to hear a case about the Davidson County Government Center in Lexington, N.C. Two local attorneys who regularly do business at the building had sued the county, saying the inscription of the national motto was a violation of the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion.
County commissioners voted to add the inscription to the building’s façade in 2002. According to court papers, it was paid for by donations from individuals and local churches, and those who spoke in favor of it at the meeting where it was considered cited religious reasons for supporting it as well as the secular rationale that it is the national motto. It is written in 18-inch-high letters — larger than the name of the building — according to the plaintiffs.
In 2004, a federal district court said the inscription’s opponents had not proven that the inscription was created with an insufficiently secular purpose or that it unconstitutionally endorsed or caused entanglement with religion. A unanimous three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision earlier this year.
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